The invention generally relates to an adapter for a vehicle-towed trailer capable of use with a variety of cooking devices to render them mobile. In more particular detail the invention is related to portable or mobile outdoor cooking grills including an adapter releasably mounted on the frame of a trailer for accommodation of different type grills or roasting devices.
Mobile outdoor cooking devices that are offered in combination with trailers are known in the industry and allow the commercial caterer, restaurant service, or the like, to travel to remote locations and provide food service for large numbers of people, such as at picnics, carnivals and other social activities. Some outdoor cooking grills and ovens are mounted on their own legs and wheels and may be wheeled about, for example, on a patio or clubhouse veranda. With certain cooking devices the legs and wheels may be removed for storage or transport. Cooking devices utilizing hitched trailers have heretofore been formed as part of the trailer and have not been able to be removed from the trailer frame for separate, or independent use.
It would be a great advantage to those that provide outdoor cooking services to have available to cooking grill or oven device that may be used on its own legs in the first instance, and secondly, also be capable of being easily mounted on a mobile trailer unit. It would therefore accordingly be desirable to provide a transport vehicle that includes a trailer adapter that may be removable from the trailer frame so that the trailer may be used to transport other things, but primarily used for attachment of the trailer adapter. The trailer adapter would be also desirably formed to accommodate a plurality of grills whereby to render them all mobile upon the removal of any support legs and positioning onto the trailer adapter.
It would be desirable to provide a trailer adapter that releasably fastens to the frame of a vehicle-drawn trailer whereby the trailer may have other uses so that it is not limited to use as a cooking device. In this way, the cooking devices also might be separately used as stand-alone units on their own support legs.
It would also be a great advantage to the cooking industry in providing a transport vehicle for grills having standard removable legs whereby the legs might be removed and the grill conveyed to a remote location whereupon the grill may be taken from the trailer adapter and remounted with the legs. In this regard the trailer is simply used as a conveyance device and is not required to be present for cooking at the remote location, but may be taken elsewhere for other purposes.
In brief summary, the invention may be described as a trailer adapter, preferentially having a rectangular configuration in plan with two opposing long panels and two opposing shorter panels. The trailer adapter panels are desirably welded together for unitary construction, wherein a first shorter panel is arranged to be disposed generally adjacent the hitch assembly end of the trailer and joined to front ends of the long panels. In one form of the invention an opposing second shorter panel has a height less than the first shorter panel and is welded to the opposite, or rear, ends of the long panels; and in an alternate form the second shorter panel has the same height as the first shorter panel.
The trailer adapter includes inward flanges at the lower ends of the panels for resting atop the typical box-beam frame members of a trailer and having bolt-receiving holes facilitating removable attachment to the frame. The upper edges of the long panels and upper edges of said first shorter panel adjacent the hitch assembly are provided in the first form of the invention with outward flanged portions for supportively nesting underneath the complementarily shaped flanged lips of the firebox walls of a gas grill device having gas control panel means at one end. Thereby the adapter is flange-nested along the two opposing long panels and one shorter panel. The opposing second shorter wall includes a flange for supporting the bed of the firebox therealong. In the second form, the second shorter panel of the trailer adapter is the same height as the first shorter panel and also includes an outward flange for nesting underneath the flanged lip of the fourth wall of a grill firebox.
The firebox of the supported grill is arranged to be disposed generally with a major portion within the four panels of the trailer adapter. The first shorter panel of the adapter is desirably provided with engageable apertures for the receipt therethrough of bolts whereby to be capable of receiving bolts that may extend through a corresponding end wall of a firebox and through a grill support panel mounted to said firebox wall, for releasably securing the grill to the adapter.
The trailer adapter is preferably provided with L-shaped angle bracket connectors weld-engaged to the ends of the long panels and to the first shorter panel whereby the first shorter panel is spaced lengthwise and forward of the long panels to form spaces, or slots, in order to accommodate flanged portions of the end walls of grill fireboxes within the slots. Slots may also be similarly created by means of bracket connectors at the second shorter wall for the second form having a height substantially the same as the first shorter wall for use particularly with charcoal grills where the front and rear end walls are the same and no gas control panel is attached at either end wall.
The trailer adapter may be readily removable from the trailer by use of simple nut and bolt fasteners, whereby to allow the trailer to be quickly converted for other purposes.
For additional anti-rattle and anti-vibration construction to withstand over-the-road-transport, bolts or self-tapping screws may be engaged through the flanged lips of the firebox walls and the upper flanges of the adapter panels.